


Dare, Death, Dust

by LigeiaMaloy



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Cheesy, Death, Friendship, Ghosts, M/M, Romantic Friendship, Strangers to Lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-29
Updated: 2017-02-09
Packaged: 2018-08-27 19:54:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8414608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LigeiaMaloy/pseuds/LigeiaMaloy
Summary: Genji Shimada fled from his home country when he realizes his family wants him dead. Now that he's safe, he enjoys a few drinks with friends and happily accepts a dare. There is an old graveyard and like all old graveyards, there are rumors about vengeful ghosts. Genji doesn't believe this nonsense and of course, he isn't scared. At all. It's only one night. Just one night. Alone among old tombstones, crosses and bones long turned into dust.Alone?(Another entry for McGenji Week)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> My third entry for the last day of [McGenji Week!](http://mcgenjiweek.tumblr.com/post/151413786319/welcome-to-mcgenji-week-to-celebrate-mcgenji-and)
> 
> This was an awesome event, I want to throw cookies and chocolates at the organizer and everyone who took part! 
> 
> Unfortunately, I started writing this too late, I probably won't even finish the whole thing until Halloween is over (forgot I had to be somewhere most of the day tomorrow). So I decided to split it into three short parts.
> 
> Although there's a ghost (and therefore at least one dead major character) I wouldn't call this scary in a sense of nightmare fuel. Also, no splatter. Some feelings, tho. No, honestly, I find this difficult to tag, if you miss a certain tag, please let me know and I'll add it.
> 
> Enough of this blabber! Enjoy the story!
> 
> (or enjoy on [ my Overwatch tumblr](http://overwatchmayhem.tumblr.com/post/152483812242/dare-death-dust-part-1mcgenji))

Genji wasn’t drunk enough for the luxury of denial; this wasn’t his worst idea, this wasn’t his most dangerous idea. But, in the twenty years of his life, this had to be his dumbest idea.

He shuddered. Nobody had told him about the cold nights of the desert, if somebody had told him, he would have laughed. Deserts weren’t cold, that was ridiculous, yet, he had ridiculed himself, coming here wearing thin pants and a short-sleeved shirt. A cloud crept in front of the moon and goosebumps over his skin.

Rubbing his arms in hope for a little bit of warmth, he listened. The silent was worse than the darkness. He waited for the howls of a coyote, little creatures rustling across the sand and behind the dry bushes. He’d have welcomed an unknown stranger sneaking up from behind, anything, anyone, a presence promising him the world was still filled with life.

But he was alone. Alone with his heartbeat and the dust of countless corpses.

He sighed, watching his breath forming a cloud and raising towards the sky.

Last Hill Cemetery was the name the locals had given the graveyard. Rows and rows of graves spiraling down into the valley. Nobody had been buried here for more than two hundred years, not officially.

It had been a joke, his new friends had teased him with stories about vengeful ghosts and daring wanderers who disappeared after setting a foot on the cemetery at during the nightly hours. Wilder and wilder tales prospered under the stream of alcohol shared among them and it had been Genji himself who announced he’d go.

Pleasantly drunk, between laughing faces and walls still storing the warmth from the day, a few hours alone among the dead were nothing but a walk to catch some fresh air. With his friends leaving him, after a one-hours drive, the fresh air sobered him up soon.

His legs were hurting from sitting in one position. He unknotted them and stood up, slowly circling the first row of askew wooden crosses and crumbled stone slabs. Dry twigs and branches broke beneath his steps with the sound of cracking bones. The steady wind gently ruffled through his hair, caressed his pallid cheeks with its invisible fingers.

The moon was hiding. Stars were shining where the blackest curtain remained open, their light cold and taunting.

Genji looked over his shoulder, looked back ahead and kept walking. That was all he could do. Walking. Or the touches of his imagination would reach deeper beneath his skin and clench around his bones.

He stopped. He was sure he had seen this tombstone before. Yet, they looked all alike. Shapes and shadows weren’t defined in the dark, broken under nature and time.

His hand reached out for the stone as though he expected to find something familiar if he touched it. His fingers twitched back before they were burnt.

Genji wanted to laugh, at his own stupidity, at his imagination running away with him but his throat was tight. A grasp from inside pulled it together and the wind whispered tales of a man who became lost after running in the same circle because he couldn’t find the beginning or the end.

The vortex of graves beckoned him to come forward. Just one step and he’d break the curse of the first circle. The small round yard in the center called for him, lying and waiting and undefined like a black pool.

Genji tore his gaze away and looked up into the sky. It was too far away to comfort him, instead, he was certain, it laughed at him. He, who was afraid of a few old bricks placed in a circle at the heart of a cemetery, sought comfort in the lifeless void called the universe. From where the light of stars spoke more of death than the darkness on earth.

The stars, existing and gone, began to pulsate as they mocked him, were spinning above his head. But Genji refused to succumb to a curse either coming from too many drinks or this God forsaken place.

His head jerked down, watching his feet that stepped between a tombstone and a cross. Death had been on his heels before. If it awaited him behind the last and smallest rows, it would for once be him who chased it.

But with every step, the distance was shrinking and thus, his eyes were less decisive. Genji’s heart grew lighter. There wasn’t a black pool at the center of the graveyard. Only a small yard, in the very middle, nothing but a well. Mislead by distance and darkness, he had mistaken the structure for another shadow, maybe as a part of the line of graves behind it.

A smile twitched over his face. Boards sealed the well. For centuries, nobody had bothered to tend to the graves, if ever. The dead didn’t desire water and so, an open well would be nothing but a trap for careless fools fulfilling their part of a dare in the middle of the night.

He pressed his hands on top of the boards. His heart warned him of hands breaking through the wood and dragging to the bottom but his senses told him they were sturdy.

Yes, this was a good spot to sit down. Here, he would wait until sunrise, when his friends would come for him. Nobody could accuse him of hiding behind one of the few trees on top of the hill if they found him here.

He took a deep breath. His mind was at ease and his lungs filled with cold air that smelled of sand and forgotten dust. He ached for company, almost welcoming the wind that followed him. It was twirling and twisting around his feet, pulling and biting his skin, no more playful as it crept up his legs.

Then, the night froze.

Genji’s fingers clawed into the wood beneath them, splinters cracking and shoving under his nails.

Among the rows of the deceased, shadows were bleeding from the darkness, leaving a nothingness behind the human eye refused to grasp. The heartbeat drumming down the silence was his own.

Certainty engulfed, petrified him and his wide eyes - it was too late for him. There was nowhere to run, no time. Here, he would stay while legends were coming true to take him.

The shadows were rising and with them, a shape emerged from the earth.

Then, it moved. Slow at first, faster then. And as it sped in circles, it was shedding the shadows, returning them to the night.

A new sound joined Genji’s heart. Hooves were galloping on dry ground as the horse was throwing up his head. A constant staccato with no regard of the graves beneath them as the rider’s spurs kicked his horse’s sides. Reigns snapped.

And as the rider suddenly took still, the shapes formed the silhouette of a cowboy. A cowboy with a wide hat, a serape wrapped around his shoulders. Spurs glistened in the night, as impossible as it was as they were nothing but a shadow imprinted with a memory. But they did, Genji swore he saw it. And if he was seeing things - this was ridiculous to the other trick his imagination was playing on him. He hoped was playing on him.

But what he hoped to be an illusion didn’t fade, no matter how hard he pressed his eyes together before he opened them again.

This was real and whatever it was, it slowly turned his head.

“No…” was the first word he said in hours. The rider clicked his tongue and the horse turned around.

The horse made a huffing noise, jerking up its head. Spurs jingled, and yet, like the clopping of the hooves, every noise, every sound, was a pale echo from far away and from inside of Genji’s head.

The closer the rider came, the more unreal Genji’s own existence became. Was it really a rider rising from the graves who didn’t belong, wasn’t it rather the sound of his own heart, the noise of blood rushing through his veins, the gasps for air as he forgot to breathe?

He didn’t move a muscle. There were no shadows to hide and if there were, the noise of being alive alone would give him away. Genji wanted to scream, he couldn’t. Dreadful terror strangled his voice down to a pathetic yelp.

The rider stopped. Genji looked into the face of a bearded man, his eyes weren’t pitch black pools as Genji had thought at first. He saw a nose with a strong back and ragged hair showing from under his head. In no dream, his voice of reason shattered his last hope, he’d see a stranger’s face so clearly, with every detail that made as real as the sheer horror that was clenching around Genji’s stomach.

The rider opened his mouth and closed it and all Genji heard was grinding sand and dust whirled up by a faint wind.

“Please, leave me alone. I won’t tell anyone. Please, don’t kill me.” Taunting memories flooded his mind, of friends and laughter, banter, booze and finally, a blade aiming for his heart, led by his own kind. He had escaped death once and now it was back, in shape of a dead man riding the shadow of an eyeless horse.

“Where is Arch Stanton?” a hollow voice cracked.

“What?” His brain refused to process the words. There was a ghost, it was speaking to him. Seconds crept like hours as Genji slid from the edge of the well. The sound of his feet touching the ground exploded like thunder in his ears. Feeling his way along the boards behind him, he took one small step to the side.

“Don’t take me for a fool. Tell me where he is, bastard!” The rider’s arm twitched. All Genji saw was the barrel of a gun pointing at his head.

And when the horse whickered, everything went black.

 

His eyelids flickered. His face was wet and cold, his spine hurting. Slowly, he opened his eyes. It was still dark. The sky and its twinkling stars hadn’t changed. Somewhere, a horse was blowing its nostrils, a hoof scabbing in the sand.

“I’m dead…”

“No, you only fainted.”

Genji sat up with a jolt. That voice…!

He turned his head slowly and almost fainted again. The rider was sitting next to him, with a cigar between his lips. Unearthly smoke spiraled towards the sky. The horse was standing a few feet away from them, its nose moving through the dirt.

Quickly, Genji wiped over his forehead and stared at his fingers. They weren’t dark. He wasn’t bleeding, he was covered in cold sweat.

“Wasn’t aware I was threatening a kid. Now I feel like the bad guy.” The rider took a pull from his cigar and blew a circle of this strange, ghostly smoke into the night.

“A kid? Fuck you, I’m almost twenty-two!” He bit his tongue. Either he was crazy or adamant about getting himself killed.

“Cute. What’s your name, kid?”

“My… name?” That was it. He had finally lost his mind. He probably had hit his head harder than he thought and was still out cold. Yes, that was more likely than him sitting in the middle of a graveyard at night, having a chat with a ghost of a cowboy. Who was casually smoking next to him.

“You’re old enough to know what a name is, aren’t you?”

Casually smoking _and_ mocking him!

“Genji Shimada. And you are?”

“Jesse McCree.” The ghost gave a laugh sounding like too many cigars and death. “Or what’s left of me.”

“So, you’re aware of being… what you are?” Somehow, it felt inappropriate to outright calling him a ghost.

“Which year is it?”

“2055.”

“Then I had over two hundred years to understand what I am. Sorry I scared you, kid. Sometimes, I forget those who knew are long gone.”

“It’s okay… I guess.” He was alive and nobody had dragged him into the endless flames of hell, yet. This was as okay as it could get, considering the circumstances. Genji was shivering as the wind danced around him but the terror was falling off of him. His heart was calming down as his mind gave up and gave in to accept a ghost named Jesse McCree as a new part of reality. But as long as Genji didn’t know if a bullet fired by a ghost could kill him, fear remained.

“Honeyball, come over here, will you?” The horse’s ears twitched as its master called. It lifted its head and trotted towards them. “There you are, sweetie.” Jesse McCree rubbed along its head when it nudged his shoulder.

“Honeyball, seriously? That’s the name of a ghost cobwoy’s ghost horse?! No, I mean…!” Genji’s chuckle died in his throat when he realized what he just said. The gut-wrenching terror flared up again when McCree looked at him.

“A pretty name for a pretty girl,” he said with a smug air and suddenly, he laughed. “Ah, that feels good. It had been too long.”

“Glad to be of service,” Genji muttered. His thoughts went blank, too confused he was by the idea of a ghost laughing. But McCree did, and still grinned when the laughter subsided. The vision of him was so clear Genji saw the fine lines around his eyes deepening. If he, only for a moment, tried to forget about this man being a ghost and that he, Genji, should be trembling with fear, he had to admit that this face wasn’t scary at all. Rough, but not unkind.

“You should feed her better, though. Pretty skinny, that pretty girl.” Genji spoke more to keep the silence away without really having anything to say. He was right, though. Jesse McCree looked like a normal man, as far as a ghost could look normal. He wasn’t decayed or bony. The horse was nothing but skin and bones. Fur was tightly stretched over ribs and here and there, the skin was torn. The worst were the missing eyes.

“It’s my fault. If I only…” The humor had vanished from McCree’s voice. He didn’t finish the sentence, yet, the air was heavy with sadness and regret as he stood up and wrapped his arms around the mare’s throat. “Sorry I dragged you into this, honey.”

Suddenly, he shot around.

“Genji.” That came sharply and with a hopeful determination that pushed Genji back. Still sitting, he crawled backward, not daring to stand up.

“Y-yes?”

“I need your help.” With one swift leap, McCree was above him. His hands reached for Genji’s shoulders but moved right through them. His face was so close, Genji expected to smell tobacco. But there was only the smell of dust and wind. “Come back tomorrow. Please, I beg you! I need your help!”

“What… how’s there anything I could do? Why do I have to come back? Can’t I do it now?” And be done with it? One thing was sure, once he got away from this God forsaken place he’d never return. Unless a ghost and his horse started to haunt him. Oh God, what if they haunted him from now on?

“The night is almost over for me. Please, Genji Shimada. Come back tomorrow. Nothing will happen to you, but please, I need your help.” He was sitting on Genji’s legs, or rather, on the ground where they were resting, the legs sticking through him. The horse walked up to him, putting its head on McCree’s shoulder.

“Please,” McCree repeated again. The smile pained Genji more than the terror from before. There was so much sadness in McCree’s face, a sadness that overshadowed the glimmer of hope in his eyes.

“I’ll try…” Genji didn’t dare to give more than a vague answer.

“Thank you. Goodbye. We’ll be waiting for you tomorrow.” Something in his face changed. The smile distorted, his eyes widened and he gasped for air.

A thin, dark thread trickled down his face from a small hole in his forehead.

Then, rider and horse were gone.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year and all that! Admit it, nobody believed I'd ever update this, right? Well, here's the second chapter of this little, comfy ghost story!  
> I hope you enjoy it and have fun ♥
> 
> See you again next Halloween for chapter 3!
> 
> (just kidding, it'll come sooner. Probably.)

In the early morning hours, his friends arrived at the agreed time, not one minute sooner. They found him leaning against a gravestone, dozing peacefully. The nap was quickly over. Hands patted him on his back and pulled him up, laughter greeted him. The promise of a whole bucket filled with hot coffee woke him up for good.

“Ghosts, bullshit! Told you, only idiots believe in ghosts! However, the accommodations could be better.” He flinched and rubbed his neck. His back was stiff and his shoulders cracked when he stretched them. The rough ride back into town in a Jeep didn’t make it better. His whole body was aching for a soft bed. He was surprised by his own good mood. The chatter with his friends kept him distracted and with the blue sky and a merry sun above him, what he had seen the night before seemed like a bad dream. No, not really a bad dream. After all, he made it out alive and the ghost didn’t threaten to haunt him for the rest of his life, that was something. Also, he had won his bet, the admiration of his temporary gang, and an evening of drinks and foods on their expense. 

He began to doubt that what he had seen and heard was real. He looked into the faces of his friends. _Friends._ They were a likable bunch of four guys he had met a few days before. They loved fun, drinks and being stupid. He couldn’t ask for a better company but if all was said and done, he wouldn’t trust any of them further than he could throw a gravestone. It didn’t matter, he didn’t need them for anything else but a distraction from his own worries. However, especially after this strange night, it would have been nice to have somebody to confide in.

He fell silent during the last half of an hour of the ride. His father was open for spirits and the legends surrounding them but he would have suspected Genji was playing a prank. The elders, the priest in the temple of his hometown, they might have believed him but he hated talking to them. They probably would have made up a reason why it was his fault the cemetery was haunted, even if the ghost had lived in the stone ages.

Finally, his brother…

“Hey, buddy, you asleep or what?” The driver, Manuel, punched Genji’s arm and jumped out of the car.

“Huh?” He was the only one left, the others were already on their way to the same inn that served as a pub during the nights. It was still before noon so they offered breakfast instead of drinks and snacks. He winced when his stomach grumbled. The all too human noise sounded wrong in his ears after what he had experienced only a few hours ago. Or what he had dreamed. Well, he would make up his mind if it was a dream or not later, after a large cup of steaming hot coffee and fresh scrambled eggs. Once he’d have stuffed himself, it was time for a shower and a long, long nap. This time, in his bed in the small but pretty hotel room.

“Mr. Shimada?” The owner of the restaurant hurried towards him once he walked through the door. She was a gentle, sweet and elderly lady in the morning and tough as nails at night. The frown on her face didn’t suit either side of her. Genji didn’t have to wait long until he understood what filled her vivid eyes with cold contempt.

“A stranger walked in earlier and asked for you. I told him I don’t know any Shimera or whatever the name is. Bad news, that guy, bad news. Told me to contact him if somebody by this name checks in some time. He also left a message I’m supposed to give you in case you try to leave before they’re back.” She handed him an envelope. There was no name written on it but the family seal of the Shimada family seemed to add the weight of a ton to the innocent looking paper.

“I tell you right now, I don’t tolerate trouble in my house. And now enjoy your breakfast, darling.” She patted his ashen cheek. “My, I better tell the kitchen to bring you an extra large slice of cake. You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

*

He stared at the clock on the dashboard. Still not midnight, another five minutes of waiting and doing nothing. His fingers clenched around the steering wheel, his foot tapped lightly on the gas pedal. He was wasting precious time. He should be on his way but instead, he was sitting in a stolen car only a few feet away from the first row of gravestones and crosses. He was shivering but not only from the chill air of the night. There was the great unknown lying in front of them, his future and life, while he was waiting for the answer to the question what he really knew or just thought he knew about this place. The worst was the certainty he had left behind him but that was now on his trail and wouldn’t rest until it found him.

He should drive, just drive. He had a tank full of gas, the food, and water he had pilfered from the inn’s kitchen should last two or three days, maybe longer if he controlled his spoiled stomach. Being on the run was fun, almost like in the books and movies… as long as he was among other humans and close to a store or hotel. The romance quickly died once he was on his own and had, for the first time in his life, plan ahead and be mindful of his resources. He didn’t even dare to think of the day he was running out of money. One thing was for sure, if he waited too long or was stupid enough to return, _they_ would make sure he’d have never to worry about food or money again.

Yes, he was an idiot. For accepting the stupid bet yesterday, for refusing his brain to convince himself it was all just a dream. Ghosts didn’t exist. If they exist, they certainly wouldn’t ask the living for favors. No, a decent ghost who was worth its name would scare the living shitless, mock them, terrorize them, maybe even try to kill them. But not stare at him with desperate, dead eyes, begging him to return and help him with… whatever ghost-business he might have.

“You came back. Genji.”

Genji gave a jump, hitting the back of his head against the driver’s window when his head jerked around.

A shadow in the shape of a man was sitting on the passenger seat. Genji pressed his eyes together, trying to shake the pain off, blinked a few times and opened them again. The shadow was pulsating, whirls black and purple vibrating from its core as the limbs grew into arms and split into fingers where they ended. Genji glanced at the clock. Five minutes past midnight. Dammit. He had been so lost in his thoughts he had missed the ghost’s awakening and had given him the chance to sneak up on him.

It was a pitch-black night without a moon or stars lending their pale light to Genji’s eyes. He considered switching on the light in the car but hesitated. He had been more into action movies and comedies, horror movies weren’t his favorites which he regretted now. Maybe he’d otherwise know if artificial light killed ghosts - could ghosts be killed? - or angered them. If his memory didn’t fool him, ghosts and angry spirits from the fairy tales his grandma used to tell him vanished as soon as the sun climbed the sky. But was it the same for artificial light and anyway, was it the same for ghosts haunting cemeteries in Spain?

The ghost’s transformation ended. It was the same cowboy from the night before. Genji could see the details and tears in his head, the hairs of his beard and the fine lines around the dark eyes. He could even see the buttons and seams for the long coat. The ghost looked so real if it weren’t for the eerie light glowing inside his slightly transparent shape, and the absence of color. Everything about him was black and gray. Yet, the worst was the lack of motion. Not that he didn’t tilt his head, or let his unreal fingertips slide over the car’s dashboard.

His chest wasn’t moving as he didn’t breathe. The tiny, almost invisible changes in a face, small twitches of the mouth, the nose, or eyes, the little things a living being usually didn’t even notice when they were there suddenly hurt Genji’s brain, now that they weren’t there.

He tore his gaze away from the ghost’s unsettling face. That was when he noticed the ghost wasn’t really sitting in the passenger’s seat - he was hovering inches above it. A part of his back disappeared inside the backrest and his legs stuck through the legroom.

“What’s so funny?” the hollow voice growled. Genji winched under the cold stare. He hadn’t been aware he was grinning and quickly bit his bottom lip.

“I… I’m sorry… It’s just… the way you’re sitting…” Genji pointed at the cowboy’s legs. The ghost gave a snort and stood up, standing inside the car, legs through the bottom, head through the roof. A chill crept through Genji when the ghost slowly walked through him.

Standing outside the car, he gestured Genji to follow.

Now was his chance to get out of here. Turn the key, hit the gas, and don’t stop driving before sunrise. Unless he ran out of gas before but even then, he should be far away enough to be safe. He wasn’t an expert on ghosts but it seemed like this one was bound to this cemetery.

He opened the door and climbed out of the car. He was going against every instinct. Every inch of his skin tingled in alarm, the fine hairs of his neck were rising. A thin layer of sweat covered his forehead and his shirt was sticking to his back. His body told him to run away before it was too late but he couldn’t turn around.

Not until he knew what the ghost wanted. Reason applied to real dangers, to wild animals, blood-thirsty assassins, to sickness and disease. But not spirits who weren’t part of this world anymore.

If this still was this world. They walked through the rows of graves. The headstones were very real, and his legs would be covered in bruises the next moment from the many times he bumped into one because he didn’t watch his step. Yet, this place felt as unreal as its only residents whose souls haven’t moved on. The well in the middle of the spiral of graves still seemed to pull him towards the center. It was dark, yet he could see well, with the glowing shape walking in front of him, and the shadow horse awaiting them.

And it was silent, so silent. There were no rustling animals bustling about, not one bat fluttered through the cool night. The next living and breathing human being was far away. Villages, cities, cars - they all might as well have never existed. Maybe it wasn’t the cemetery that didn’t belong to this world. Maybe it was Genji who didn’t belong here, who was in the wrong for walking on the dust of the death, following the last remaining dead soul that walked through stones and woods without the slightest noise. Silence wrapped around Genji tighter than the darkness.

“What… what was your name again?” He had to say something before the noises of his own heart and breathing failed to save him from being crushed. He didn’t remember much of what had been said the night before. There had been names but his brain had worked hard to not go crazy to bother with details.

“Jesse McCree. Call me Jesse.” The ghost was standing by his horse, stroking over the long nose, one arm wrapped around the animal’s neck, ruffling through the black mane.

“Jesse. Got it. I, uh, I’m sorry, about what I said in the car, I mean. You probably don’t sit in cars often?” He released his breath when Jesse chuckled.

“Ain’t sitting on many other things than my lady’s back these days. Sometimes, it’s hard to remember how to do it right elsewhere.”

“Remember?” Genji hesitated to ask but the wording struck him as odd. Jesse laughed, patting the horse’s throat, and walked towards Genji. And again, through him, making him shudder.

“Only the dead can touch the dead. Sitting, lying, standing, it all loses its meaning if you glide through things.”

“But how are you and your horse… Honey, wasn’t it? How are you standing and walking on the ground, not sinking through it?!” Genji frowned when Jesse laughed again. He didn’t see what was so funny about his question.

“I know how to walk and stand. Because I remember.” Jesse tapped his right temple with his fingertip. “As for Honey, she’s a horse. She doesn’t know better.”

The horse neighed when it heard its name. Its ears twitching, it walked trough Genji to follow its master.

“Please, stop doing that, both of you!” Genji groaned, rubbing his arms. He had thought of putting on a shirt with longer arms tonight, but he was shivering as if he was standing naked in a snowstorm.

“That’s the worst thing of being dead,” Jesse said, already being busy again with patting and scratching his horse. “You don’t need the things you did when you were alive and you begin to forget them if you aren’t careful. How to turn your head not too far, the length of a step, to stand with both your feet down on the ground. Or how to speak.”

Genji narrowed his eyes. Yes, now that Jesse mentioned it, he noticed a difference in the way he spoke. His voice was still hollow and as if it came from far away but it was clear and easy to understand him. Last night, it sounded like he was speaking through grinding sand.

“I think I understand…” Only, he wasn’t so sure. How did anyone forget how to sit or had to force themselves to remember a simple thing like walking on the ground? He looked at his own feet. He stood firmly, his toes almost touching a crumbled gravestone. The wind was blowing sand over his boots. He lifted one foot after another, shaking off the dirt. It felt like the cemetery was only waiting for him to let his guard down, to claim him when he wasn’t expecting it.

“You don’t have to, but appreciated. Right, Honey?” Jesse hardly looked at Genji. His hand was buried in his horse’s mane, his gaze lost in the dark, dead eyes. Genji swallowed against the uneasiness tightening his throat. He wasn’t in danger but he was observing a friendship based on deep trust that lasted beyond the grave. He wasn’t a part of this scene and felt more lost than ever. And, who knew what else would follow him beyond death? Something less desirable than a loyal pet?

“You asked for my help last night. What do you want? Do you want me to kill somebody for you, the whole revenge shtick because you cannot hold a real gun?” He gave a little laugh that was as true as his confidence and his grin didn’t reach his eyes.

“You’re centuries too late for that, boy.” The ghost’s laugh sent a chill down Genji’s spine, but it wasn’t honest either. Empathy, bothering with the mood and feelings of others, wasn’t Genji’s forte but even he sensed the deep sadness. Heavy with decades of regret it echoed from a world that had no place in this anymore but yet tangible and as real as Genji, which terrified him more than anything he had seen since last night.

“What is it, then?” If the ghost didn’t answer him he would turn around and get out of here as fast as the car would let him.

“I’ll show you. Follow me. Come, Honey.” Putting an arm around the animal’s neck, he steered it around and guided it through the graves, uphill. Genji hesitated. This could be a trap although he had no idea how somebody would hide a trap or an ambush in this area. Nothing offered cover and the ground was dry and hard as stone, it was unlikely somebody had dug a trench or a pit for him to step into.

“Dammit.” Ghost or not, he had other priorities! His pursuers wouldn’t follow the wrong track he had set up for them forever and when they came back and found him, nothing from the world of the dead could be half as dangerous as the living.

But… He had to hurry to keep up with the ghosts. They weren’t fast but unlike them, he had to watch his step and walk around the headstones and crosses if he didn’t want to sprain his ankles. The ghosts’ faint glow was the only source of light and if he fell too far behind, he’d stand in darkness.

Genji looked back over his shoulder. His car stood on the other side of the cemetery. He more guessed than saw its silhouette. The further he walked away from it, the less sure he was he was really seeing it. If he ran into this direction now, he might chase an illusion and disappear in the night.

He didn’t like this. His sense of direction was useless and he depended on the ghost of a cowboy and his horse that led him away from the only visual anchor he was familiar with. Like a will-o'-the-wisp, they guided him away from the last row of graves and soon, he and the ghosts were alone in the desert.

The wind picked up and brushed over his skin with thin, cold fingers. His eyelids twitched, his eyes began to burn and he tried to rub the sand out of them with the back of his hand, more or less successfully. Without a visible clue, nothing seemed real anymore. He thought of the ghost’s words, about how easily it was to forget the most mundane things that were natural for everyone alive.

Was he really walking on the ground? Why was he so sure he didn’t just believe he did because it’s what he expected to do? Was there a ground beneath his feet or was the wind blowing whirling earth and sand high into the air until nothing was left but the memory of it?

He shivered, from the cold and the sand tickling and pinching him. He heard voices, writing them off as the wind whispering into his ears but he had to realize he was wrong. The wind was only the carrier of hollow voices mumbling into the night. Genji didn’t understand what they asked, if he did, he wouldn’t have known how to answer. But the spirits reached out and talked to him and each choice, silent or talking, bore the risk of awakening their anger.

They chuckled, they were mocking him. They were spirits, they didn’t need eyes to see him trembling. With all they were and weren’t, they looked into his heart, drinking from his fear. He wasn’t brave. He might lie to himself but they knew and they would use it against him.

“Jesse?” Hoping to find an illusion of comfort, he wrapped his arms around his body and hugged himself, almost as if he could form a barricade that would keep the spirits out of his heart.

With no graves obstructing his way, he fell into a sprint and caught up with the ghost.

“Oh? What is it?” The ghost turned around when Genji was walking next to him, sounding confused as if he had forgotten the human he had asked to come with him. And suddenly, the whispers stopped. Genji blinked at him and his cheeks began to burn.

It hadn’t been voices, it had been one voice and it wasn’t the voice of a spirit.

“Nothing. Where are we going?” He looked down, watching his feet move. The ghost, Jesse, he had been talking, to his horse. The wind had played a cruel prank with him and his own brain had helped, filling his mind with vivid imaginations. He sighed with relief when the loneliness returned. It was better to walk with a ghost cowboy through the desert alone than being surrounded by malicious spirits of both worlds.

“Nowhere. We arrived. Do you see that?” Jesse raised his arm and Genji looked into the direction he pointed. At first, he saw nothing, then he wasn’t so sure. He pressed his eyes together and looked again. Yes, there was something! A tree.

He walked closer, stretching out a trembling hand and pressed it against the trunk. His tensed shoulders dropped and he let out a long sigh. The bark was dry and hard and very real to his touch. He remembered seeing single trees here and there on his drives to the graveyard and back. They were gnarly with thin branches and didn’t carry one single leaf. He hadn’t paid much attention for them and had almost forgotten they existed.

“It’s a tree!” His voice sounded stupid in his own ears as he stated the obvious only to say something. Jesse seemed to agree with Genji’s judgment and grinned at him. Genji pulled a face and walked around the tree. This thing was old and dead, probably older than the graves. This place, everything that ever breathed here was condemned to die and stay behind forever. Poor thing, he almost pitied it.

He half expected angry roots shooting up from the dirt to pull him away from the surface of the earth, to feed the tree or grant the cowboy a wish or because he was beginning to feel like nothing could surprise him anymore in his own horror story.

Nothing happened. He flinched when a splinter drilled into his finger but that was all and quickly resolved.

A little disappointed, he turned around. He valued his life but after the walk through the darkness, he had expected more than a dead piece of wood. Another shudder shot through him when he looked into Jesse’s face. There it was again, the boundless sadness, this time, in his features, not only in his voice.

“It’s not just any old damn tree.” The ghost’s voice trembled. His horse stood behind him but when it rubbed its nose on Jesse’s shoulder, the grief and regret only grew more.

Genji took a step back. He was emotional. His laughter was contagious, his sadness had once made those around him weep and give him anything he wanted. His scorn was a torch setting a field on fire during a drought and finally, as he had put his own emotions over his duties, he had turned his family against himself.

But everything he had ever felt was nothing but a spark in the ocean when a sadness nurtured for so many years was suffocating him.

He struggled to breathe as Jesse walked past him and put a hand against the tree.

“Come closer, please. Don’t be afraid, ain’t doing anything to you. Gotta show you something.” His head lowered, the ghost turned his face away from Genji to hide his features in his own shadow. Genji stepped closer.

“Look, here. You can see this, can’t you? It’s still real, yes?” Jesse knelt down and folded his hands around something on the ground without getting a hold of it. Genji knelt down as well and saw the glowing fingers slip through something that looked like a piece of rope. He crouched closer, his eyes adjusting to the faint light coming from the ghost.

He jumped up and jerked around. Something was scratching over the sand.

Genji frowned, cursing his heart to calm down. There was only that damned horse, its hoof scratching over the ground. It gave a high-pitched neigh and pranced to the left and right backward and back to the spot where its rider had left him.

“Can’t it come here? It looks like it wants to join us.” Ghost or not, he was pitying the impatient creature, sensing its fear as if it was his own.

“No, she wants us to join her. She doesn’t want to come here. Can’t blame her. Now, look again!”

Genji winced at the impatient tone. The last thing he wanted was to anger the cowboy. If he left, Genji would be alone without a light and he was not looking forward to spent the night so far away from the safety of his car, or even the cemetery. As weird as it was, anything familiar was better than the pure darkness in the middle of nowhere.

He knelt down again. His fingers felt over the ground and before he saw it, he felt it.

He grabbed the rope but when he tried to pick it up, he was held back. He moved a little closer to Jesse until he got a better look at it.

It was a rope indeed. It was old and moldy and wrapped around the tree. He pulled it around until he found the sturdy knot. He pulled at the loose end, surprised as it was strangely heavy. The ground rustled and from a layer of dirt, sand, and stones, he freed the remains of a bridle.

Or what was left of it.

The rope wasn’t a rope after all, but part of a bridle. Most of the old leather had been dried by the sun and crumbled away but the stripes connecting the reins and the bit.

“What… is this? Jesse? Oh, fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Genji lost his balance and fell backward to the ground. The bridle slipped through his fingers. Crawling away from the tree, he stared at Jesse who had turned his head towards him but didn’t stare back.

The ghost’s face was gone.

A shrill cry cut through the night. The horse, it was frantic. It reared, throwing its hooves high into the air, letting out another piercing scream.

 

 


End file.
